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Staffordshire Vs Warwickshire (26/01/08) Match Report
In a match where the two teams were so evenly matched that a mere coin flip
might have decided it, the Warwickshire players produced a real feast of
chess for all to enjoy. The final result, as often is the case, does not
reflect what a battle really took place and how easily the match could have
gone against us.
I hope my game analysis to be accurate, appologies in advance to any players
whom I might misrepresent their games as I had quite a hard one of my own
which took alot of time to handle (Nick managed to win the coin toss for us,
meaning I had to play white for the first time ever in a county game).
Board 1: Nick Thomas Vs Lawrence Cooper A game I had noted to be a
phillidors defence, by black was actually pointed out to me to be a kind of
french, pirc hybrid opening. Nick worked some small spacial advantages using
an advanced knight on e5 but the position was slightly too symmetrical and a
draw agreed quite early on in the day.
Board 2: Don Mason Vs Paul Wallace One of the most intresting games of the
day, Don played the Benoni and conceeded the bishop pair fairly early in the
game but had the compensation that his opponents bishops were not really
that well placed and the pawns were fairly static. This changed when pawns
got charged down the kingside in response to Dons queenside initiative and
suddenly an endgame was reached two pawns down. However, a marrauding e pawn
caused mayhem in this minimal piece ending and Don soon found himself a
bishop up but facing a formidable wall of white pawns marching their way
towards queening. Luckily, the pawns fell short of their mark as the bishop
was able to sacrifice itself to prevent their progress and Don won the rook
endame. This game is included below.
1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Nd5 Nxd5 8.exd5
Nb8 9.c4 a6 10.Nc3 Be7 11.Be2 0–0 12.a4 a5 13.0–0 Na6 14.Nb5 Bd7 15.Bd2 f5
16.f4 Bf6 17.Kh1 Bxb5 18.axb5 Nc5 19.b4 axb4 20.Rxa8 Qxa8 21.Bxb4 e4 22.Qc2
Qa7 23.g4 Ra8 24.gxf5 Qa2 25.Bd1 Qxc2 26.Bxc2 Ra2 27.Bxc5 Rxc2 28.Bxd6 e3
29.Bb4 e2 30.Re1 Rb2 31.Ba5 b6 32.c5 bxa5 33.b6 Bd4 34.c6 Bxb6 35.d6 Rc2
36.c7 Bxc7 37.dxc7 Rxc7 38.Rxe2 Kf7 39.Kg2 Ra7 40.Ra2 a4 41.Ra3 Kf6 42.Kf3
Kxf5 43.h3 h5 44.Kg3 Ra6 45.Kh4 Kxf4 46.Rxa4+ Rxa4 0–1
Board 3: Tony Hynes Vs Darren Wheeler An exchange french game, in which Tony
took control early on with the unusual new manouvre of N-h3-f4 which has
recently become fashionable for white. Things started to look good when
black conceeded an isolated d pawn and then the bishop pair, which Tony used
to win a pawn on h7. Unfortunately, this allowed some initiative on the
kingside for his opponent and a draw was agreed once the game levelled
itself out.
Board 4: John Pitcher Vs David Anderton John played the ever reliable slav
defence against Andertons d4 opening, eventually reaching a position where
the game was quite static, but with a breakthrough looming for most of the
game. Accurate play saw John navigate his way through the trickiness of his
opponents two bishops, and open g file (which can often be instrumental in
the initiation of a kingside assault) and managed to eventually hold a draw
in a difficult looking endgame.
Board 5: Stewart Fishburne Vs Gerald Acey A closed sicillian game in which
Stewart initiated an ambitious attack on the kingside via the f file.
Unfortunately, this never quite worked out for him due to some counter
chances down the open b file and he ended up in an endgame where he was two
pawns down but retained the initiative and was able to rescue the game for a
draw thanks to his active pieces.
Board 6: Ian Galloway Vs Lee Grinsell Another game which I had marked down
to be an English was revealed to me to actually have been a sicillian where
white had played c4 at a very early stage - effectively transposing the game
into a closed English game. This must have pleased Ian greatly, as he also
plays this system as white and so knew exactly what he wanted out of it. The
queenside breakthrough never really materialised for white and Ian was able
to get a nice spacial advantage with a counter thrust of his own up the f
file. This was not quite enough to win, but enough to convince white to
split the point.
Board 7: Andy Baruch Vs Alex Richardson Andy opened with an English (this
time my observation was definately correct, as I know Andy likes to play
this opening often) and managed to create initiave at a very early stage
thanks to slightly unwise play by his opponent in wandering his pieces too
far into the centre. The result of this was that the queens were traded off
on b6, and a permanent weakness was established which white was able to pick
on at his leisure as black had trouble activating his kingside pieces due to
a bishop on e6 blocking them in. A nice safe pawn was put in the bank and
after some attempts of counterplay on the kingside had been dealt with, Andy
was able to first convert one pawn into a rook and win the game fairly soon
after.
Board 8: Keith Escott Vs Malcom Armstrong Keith played his favourite Dutch
defence against a d4 system and, thanks to a dubious b3 move by his
opponent, managed to win the exchange at quite an early stage at the cost of
a single pawn. The pawns were slightly crowded and Keith had to work at it
for many moves to make his break for the rooks - but once it came he was
able to pick up some pawns and eventually sacrificed back into a rook ending
where he was two pawns up. These pawns, although disconnected, were pushed
forward and Keith gave one up to force himself into a technically winning
ending which he duely converted to a full point at the end of the match.
Board 9: Alan Lloyd Vs Alan Crombleholme Alan (Lloyd) played his favourite
English system and took great strides with his queenside pawns, cutting his
opponent off heavily. After gaining a great space advantage on the
queenside, and intruding with his actively placed pieces, things looked set
for a win (or at least a draw). However, his opponent found a tricky
counterattack at the cost of a piece and suddenly it looked as though we
might lose this game. Fortunately, Alan kept a level head and found a way of
evading the marrauding queen and bishop which threatened his king and found
sanctuary on the far side of the board. Thus, he emerged a piece up and won
another tight game for us.
Board 10: Pablo Padilla Vs Nick Walker Pablo played his home made Alekhine
system, which was tested by his opponents patient play in building up a pawn
majority on the queenside. Pablo spotted a slight weakness in the kings
placement and sacrificed a pawn to get some major initiative and quickly
turned the tables on his opponent through a series of tactical manouvres.
This was an important win for us, as it put Warwickshire in the lead for the
first time in the match and undoubtedly put additional pressure on the
remaining Staffordshire players. This game is included below, with some
annotations by Pablo.
1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb4 4.a3 Nb-c6 5.d4 d6 6.ed cd 7.Nc3 g6 8.d5 Ne5 9.f4
Ng4 10.h3 Nf6 11.Be2 Bg7 12.Nf3 0-0 13.Be3 Nh5 14.Kf2(?) e5(!) 15.fe de
16.g4(!?) e4(!) 17. Nxe4 f5(!) 18. gf Bxf5 19.Ng3 Be4(!) 20.h4 Nf6 21.Bd4
Nb-d7 22.Qd2 Qc7 23.Ra-c1 Ra-d8 24.Rc3 Bh6(!) 25.Qd1 Qf4 26.Kg2 Qg4 27.Rh3
Nh5 28.Kh2 Nxg3 29.Ne5 Qxe2+ 30.Qxe2 Nxe2 31.Nxd7 Bf4+...and white resign!
Board 11: Keith Ingram Vs John Mangwengwende Keith played the bishops
opening, but met little resistance, and took over the centre of the board
with his pawns. This allowed him some huge kingside initiative, and at one
point it looked a certain win for white. By some very resourceful play,
Mangwengwende managed to survive the big kingside attack without losing so
much as a pawn. The game was drawn soon after.
Board 12: Kaiser Malik Vs John Keaveney Kaiser dealt with his opponents
aggressive pawn thrusts well, and equalised quickly into a comfortable
looking position with the black pieces. Things were looking very good as he
was able to create a pawn break on the queenside and looked to be winning
outright until a sudden knight sacrifice on e5 was thrown in and the
position was suddenly far from clear. Luckily, the sacrifice proved not to
be fatal and Kaiser held the game to a draw.
Board 13: Dani Malik Vs John Turner Dani opened with his favourite c3
sicillian, an opening which I myself have fallen victim to on several
occasions. After his opponent omitted to capture the pawn on d4, Dani was
able to dominate the centre by playing c4 and d5 - leading to a great
looking position. Somehow a couple of pawns were lost (or sacrificed) but
the initiative remained strongly with white for the majority of the game. So
much so, that John Turner ran out of time trying to navigate through the
tricks and traps set for him and we gained another full point.
Board 14: Bob Wildig Vs David Cooper Bob played a safe french defence, with
an exchange of pawns on e4 by black to avoid the sharpest white responses.
Several times the position looked somewhat uncomfortable for Bob but he held
well and avoided all white attempts at attack - managing to hold out even
when very short on time and gain a well deserved draw.
Board 15: Joey Stewart Vs David Pritchard Having played about 80% of my
games with the black pieces this season, the whites are now starting to look
less and less familliar so it was no surprise that I made some slight
inaccuracies in trying to feel my way through a sharp sicillian najdorf game
with little knowledge of the position. With black making strong progress on
the queenside, defence seemed as good as simply resigning so in the end, the
only option was to try and create enough of a chaotic mess that it might
overcomplicate the situation for my opponent and hope that he might miss the
many wins that were there. Luckily, by making plenty of threats against his
king, I was able to survive the worst of it and agreed a draw before either
of us ran out of time.
Board 16: Ed Goodwin Vs John Staniforth This game was a Dutch defence, but
without the kingside fianchetto by black. White somehow lost the battle for
space in the centre, and suddenly it looked as though Ed was going to launch
a crushing attack on the kingside thanks to some careful rook manouvres.
Unfortunately, this attack never quite came and the black centre
disintigrated in the meantime, Ed managing to get his queen back just in
time to save himself from certain losing. By tenacious play, he managed to
reach a position where he was only a pawn down after it had looked like it
might have been much worse, and there were even slight drawing chances.
Unfortunately, the bishop ending was too much to hold in the end, but had Ed
delayed the loss for long enough that we could win several other games
without the pressure of being behind, a feat comparable to that of the 300
spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae.
Final Score: Staffordshire 5½ - Warwickshire 10½
Board 1: Lawrence Cooper (206) ½ - ½ Nick Thomas (208)
Board 2: Paul Wallace (197) 0 - 1 Don Mason (198)
Board 3: Darren Wheeler (191) ½ - ½ Tony Hynes (188)
Board 4: David Anderton (190) ½ - ½ John Pitcher (191)
Board 5: Gerald Acey (180) ½ - ½ Stewart Fishburne(170)
Board 6: Lee Grinsall (177) ½ - ½ Ian Galloway (178)
Board 7: Alex Richardson (176) 0 - 1 Andy Baruch (173)
Board 8: Malcom Armstrong (174) 0 - 1 Keith Escott (181)
Board 9: Alan Crombleholme (174) 0 - 1 Alan Lloyd (166)
Board 10: Nick Walker (168) 0 - 1 Pablo Padilla (161)
Board 11: John Mangwengwende (165) ½ - ½ Keith Ingram (160)
Board 12: John Keaveney (162) ½ - ½ Kaiser Malik (160)
Board 13: John Turner (160) 0 - 1 Dani Malik (153)
Board 14: David Cooper (158) ½ - ½ Bob Wildig (156)
Board 15: David Pritchard (153) ½ - ½ Joey Stewart (151)
Board 16: John Staniforth (146) 1 - 0 Ed Goodwin (153)
Warwickshire Vs Leicestershire (03/07/07) Venue: The
Plough, Littlethorpe
A closely contested match which was undecided until the very late stages of
the night, Leicester eventually winning 12.5 - 9.5 . Thanks to Sean Hewitt
for providing the buffet and venue and Joey Stewart/Steve Turvey for
organising the Coventry team
| Board |
Colour |
Name |
Grade |
Club |
Result |
Name |
Grade |
Club |
| 1 |
W |
Mark Page |
171 |
Whoberley |
1-0 |
Chris Jones |
180 |
Littlethorpe |
| 2 |
B |
Bob Wildig |
164 |
Rugby |
½-½ |
John Robinson |
167 |
Braunstone |
| 3 |
W |
Joey Stewart |
154 |
University |
0-1 |
Mike Sailsbury |
165 |
Braunstone |
| 4 |
B |
John Collins |
148 |
Nuneaton |
1-0 |
Chris Gibson |
159 |
Littlethorpe |
| 5 |
W |
Carl Pickering |
138 |
Whoberley |
½-½ |
Sean Sheahan |
157 |
Loughborough |
| 6 |
B |
Dave Ireland |
143 |
Whoberley |
1-0 |
Alan Jex |
155 |
Loughborough |
| 7 |
W |
Steve Booth |
145 |
Whoberley |
1-0 |
John Pattinson |
142 |
Scraptoft Valley |
| 8 |
B |
Alexei Moisseenkov |
128 |
Whoberley |
½-½ |
Sean Hewitt |
139 |
Littlethorpe |
| 9 |
W |
Steve Turvey |
129 |
University |
½-½ |
Karl Potter |
e130 |
Spiney Hill |
| 10 |
B |
Jeff Green |
110 |
Rugby |
1-0 |
Steve Wylie |
130 |
Littlethorpe |
| 11 |
W |
David Filer |
116 |
Whoberley |
1-0 |
Ioannis Karsisotis |
e125 |
Littlethorpe |
| 12 |
B |
John Murray |
112 |
Newdigate |
1-0 |
Paul Colburn |
e130 |
Braunstone |
| 13 |
W |
Fred Rose |
109 |
Nuneaton |
0-1 |
Howard Phillips |
122 |
Littlethorpe |
| 14 |
B |
Gary Compton |
102 |
Nuneaton |
0-1 |
Terry Adcock |
109 |
Loughborough |
| 15 |
W |
Nigel Malka |
98 |
Rugby |
0-1 |
Chris Graves |
107 |
Littlethorpe |
| 16 |
B |
Simon Weaver |
87 |
Whoberley |
0-1 |
David Crane |
114 |
Littlethorpe |
| 17 |
W |
Dan Bearup |
93 |
University |
0-1 |
Roy Lathwood |
104 |
Braunstone |
| 18 |
B |
Fred Higgins |
84 |
Nuneaton |
0-1 |
Richard Davis |
83 |
Spinney Hill |
| 19 |
W |
Stan Parsons |
77 |
Littlethorpe |
½-½ |
Alan Butler |
83 |
Spinney Hill |
| 20 |
B |
Paul Swatman |
53 |
Massey Ferguson |
0-1 |
Tim Rossell |
e70 |
Ashby |
| 21 |
W |
Perry Blunden |
42 |
Whoberley |
0-1 |
Richard Pell |
48 |
Littlethorpe |
| 22 |
B |
Bob Hale |
73 |
Massey Ferguson |
0-1 |
Dave Ricketts |
72 |
Littlethorpe |
BCF 100 Years Celebration Match (21/04/04) Venue: Peugeot
Social Club, Coventry
This was a match set up to celebrate 100 years of the BCFs existance, it was
played between three local leagues, namely Birmingham, Coventry and
Leamington. Each team had 20 players and the pairings were done in such a
way to ensure a fair match for all the teams involved. It was a close affair
but in the end Coventry ended up joint first with Leamington on 11.5 each.
24/02/04
| Board |
Code |
Name |
Score |
Code |
Name |
| 1 |
L1 |
P.Holt(184) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
B1 |
K.Ingram(175) |
| 2 |
B2 |
M.Smyth(159) |
0 - 1 |
C1 |
C.Green(182) |
| 3 |
C2 |
E.Goodwin(151) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
L2 |
C.Searle(159) |
| 4 |
L3 |
S.Burnell(155) |
1 - 0 |
C3 |
R.Holmes(151) |
| 5 |
C4 |
M.Page(153) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
B3 |
D.Thomas(158) |
| 6 |
B4 |
G.Christie(127) |
0 - 1 |
L4 |
D.Cheshire(154) |
| 7 |
L5 |
A.Price(151) |
0 - 1 |
B5 |
G.Hope(137) |
| 8 |
B6 |
K.Thomas(136) |
1 - 0 |
C5 |
M.Molazadeh(144) |
| 9 |
C6 |
R.Greatorex(137) |
0 - 1 |
L6 |
R.McNally(143) |
| 10 |
L7 |
A.Gundry(142) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
C7 |
D.Ireland(137) |
| 11 |
C8 |
K.Forman(144) |
1 - 0 |
B7 |
F.Jimenez(130) |
| 12 |
B8 |
M.Biddle(128) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
L8 |
D.Shurrock(132) |
| 13 |
L9 |
P.Mills(130) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
B9 |
S.Wilson(125) |
| 14 |
B10 |
K.Gilbert(120) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
C9 |
M.Johnson(133) |
| 15 |
C10 |
J.Dixon(123) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
L10 |
M.Tarlow(127) |
| 16 |
L11 |
P.Drury(121) |
0 - 1 |
C11 |
J.Stewart(123) |
| 17 |
C12 |
N.Malka(119) |
1 - 0 |
B11 |
J.Asbury(116) |
| 18 |
B12 |
L.Rawson(115) |
0 - 1 |
L12 |
A.Chowne(117) |
| 19 |
L13 |
D.Horsley(115) |
1 - 0 |
B13 |
W.Rawlings(110) |
| 20 |
B14 |
P.Bull(106) |
0 - 1 |
C13 |
P.McConnell(116) |
| 21 |
C14 |
D.Sabino(112) |
1 - 0 |
L14 |
J.Rashleigh(114) |
| 22 |
L15 |
S.Rumsby(112) |
1 - 0 |
C15 |
J.Rayner(107) |
| 23 |
C16 |
P.Davies(88) |
0 - 1 |
B15 |
A.Draper(92) |
| 24 |
B16 |
L.Wilmott(90) |
0 - 1 |
L16 |
R.Stevens(98) |
| 25 |
L17 |
B.Nash(90) |
0.5 - 0.5 |
B17 |
P.Woodward(94) |
| 26 |
B18 |
D.Rowe(93) |
1 - 0 |
C17 |
R.Hale(81) |
| 27 |
C18 |
M.Emery(80) |
1 - 0 |
L18 |
D.Henry(85) |
| 28 |
L19 |
D.Randall(76) |
0 - 1 |
C19 |
L.Glinton(81) |
| 29 |
C20 |
I.Winney(57) |
0 - 1 |
B19 |
J.Pakenham(66) |
| 30 |
B20 |
J.Fahy(114) |
1 - 0 |
L20 |
D.Goggin(128) |
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